Hey my name is Matt from Seattle, WA. I have a TE51 sport coupe as my 2nd daily driver. Basically when it's not raining out I drive it to work and stuff. My other daily is an SC400 but I don't really like it. It's too new

So far I have spent a little time fixing holes in the floor and making the interior nicer. It has a couple of cool things like nardi wheel and watanabes. The front has ae86 coilovers which I'm happy with but the rear is leaf spring and not low enough. There are blocks in there now but I don't know much about leaf springs. Any advice on making the back lower? Also, the window seals leak and I can't find new ones. Do they even exist?

Pics:

Last edited by ryojikaji on Fri Oct 11, 2013 12:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Part of why Toyota used the trailing arms in the E7 and AE86 was the leaf springs are inherently less versatile. About the only way to get the rear of your car down is with blocks. As far as handling... check the condition of the leaf spring bushings... if the leaf is twitching in its bushings that isn't good.... also Addco still shows availability on sway bars.

Such a cool little coupe!! I've got the JDM sister to your model. They're really great little classics...Love the colour on yours and she sits nicely on those Wat's! What size are they - 14" or 15"??Keep up the good work...

Hey Matt, you can take your car to an old-school spring shop and see about having them make you some custom leaf packs but it will end up being expensive. There was one shop close to me that didn't look at me funny when i gave them the make and model of the vehicle i was inquiring about, and even when i gave them my spring dimensions they brushed me off though.

you might consider swapping in a different rear end with coils and making your own perches, but since it's a daily im not sure how much work you want to put into it.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to try and flatten my primary leafs with a press this weekend. I have a complete rear end from my RA21 that I could swap in. This car isn't for the track so I don't really want to cut into it too much. I don't know how this leaf spring stuff is going to work out. I'll post pics and a write up of how I did it. Worst case I'll just figure out coilovers or something I'm more familiar with.

Also, I bought a heater from summit. I'll be installing that this weekend as well if it gets here in time.

car looks good! interior looks phenomanal. love the color too, and especially on the black watanabes. I would like to buy a set for my te51 eventually. it seems like every other sportcoupe I see only makes mine look shittier haha

personally, I would not go with 4" blocks. I have 3" on mine, and I wouldn't want to go any more. it's like driving on high heels. I'll take some pics, but I have about 2 inches of clearance in the rear. I still want to go lower, so I'm just going to have the spring eyelets flipped. it will be equivalent to a 1" drop. a local spring shop quoted me $75 each spring. also, I bought my blocks from amazon. all I had to do modification-wise was widen the hole on the bottom of the block.

also, window seals are non existent for our cars. you'll need seal it some other way. I believe another te51 guy on here replaced his seals, can't remember his name. mine are cracked as well, but we don't get much rain out here in Arizona, so I'm not worried about it.